Saturday, August 11, 2012

Surname Saturday – Ancestor #24 – Andrew Yawman

One of my goals for
2012 is to use the Surname Saturday blogging prompt as a way to assure that I
spend some time researching each of my family lines and that I have appropriate
source citations for the genealogical facts related to my ancestors. I’ve
decided to use my ahnentafel report and work back through the generations
starting with my grandparents, writing a summary of each ancestor. If you
discovered this post through a search engine and find one of your ancestors
listed here, please leave a comment to let me know.

My maternal 2nd great-grandfather Andrew Yawman
was born 29 March 1810 in Schmittviller in the Alsace Lorraine region of France. His
parents were Philip and Magdalena (Hoffman) Jamann.[1]

On 24 June 1834, Andrew married Catherine Sitterly in
Schenectady, Albany County, New York.[2]
The couple had eight known children:

Andrew is my most recent immigrant ancestor having arrived
in New York with his parents and brothers in 1832.[18]
His parents died in the cholera epidemic that year.

Andrew appeared on the 1835 New York state census in Schenectady,
Schenectady County, New York,[19]
but by the 1840 U.S. Census had moved west to Rochester, Monroe County, New York.[20]

In 1842, he became a naturalized citizen of the United
States of America. The Yawman family considered themselves German; but when
Andrew naturalized he had to renounce his allegiance to the King of France.[21]
At the time of his naturalization, Alsace-Lorraine was under French control.

By 1857, Andrew and his family had moved even further west –
to Saint Paul, in Ramsey County, Minnesota.[22]
They were in Minnesota for the 1860 census,[23]
but by 1863 were in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois.[24]
Based on information from Chicago city directories, it appears that Andrew’s
residence and business were in the path of the Great Fire.[25] I
wrote about the possible impact of the fire on the Yawman’s in a previous
blog post. It appears the family moved back to Minnesota shortly after the
fire as Andrew is not found in the Chicago city directories after 1871.

Andrew took advantage of the U.S. Homestead Act to acquire 155
acres of land in Pipestone County, Minnesota, the patent on the land being
granted on 31 May 1884.[26]
However, he did not stay long in Minnesota, moving to Denison, Grayson County,
Texas, by 1887.[27]

The census records indicate that Andrew was engaged in
business as a milliner during his time in Rochester and in Saint Paul;
daughters Kate, Apalonia, and Rebecca all worked as milliners as well. During the
time Andrew was in Chicago, he worked as a watchman for a railroad,[28] as
a salesman for his son-in-law Lee M. Phillips,[29]
and as a clerk for daughter Rebecca’s grocery business.[30] The
only time he was enumerated as a farmer was in Pipestone County, Minnesota, in
1880.

Andrew died on 24 December 1891 and is buried at Oakwood
Cemetery in Denison, Grayson County, Texas.[31] A
transcription and image of his obituary from the Dallas Morning News can be found here.

Over the years, I have accumulated quite a lot of
information about Andrew Yawman’s life, but there is more that I would like to
find and learn:

I need to obtain records for Andrew’s birth or baptism and
his marriage to Catherine Sitterly; likely these will be found in church
records.

I have not been able to locate documentation of Andrew’s
arrival in the United States with his parents and brothers.

I’d like to have more information and understanding of why
Andrew moved so much, and I’m curious as to why he went to Minnesota, then back
to Chicago, and to Minnesota again.

One of my cousins has done a great deal of research on the
Yawman family; perhaps I can get more information from him.